Wednesday, 24 January, 2007

by Adrienne Francis
ABC Country Hour

One of the world's largest gold producers is trying to reach agreement with it's neighbours, over closing the old Woodcutters mine at Batchelor. This zinc, silver and lead open cut pit and underground mine operated from 1986 to 1999. Over the years it has been owned by companies including Nicron Resources, the Normandy Poseidon Group and finally Newmont Australia. Mike Slight is in charge of managing the legacy left to Newmont, by past owners.

"We inherited I guess a site that had a closure plan that had not been really communicated to the stakeholders, and what they thought were the issues. Where I think they fell down, and this is certainly a lesson from companies to learn from, is that communication of the plan and the strategies deliver on the plan, should be a number one priority and it should be done prior to closing."

"In the open pit there are high levels of metal, which you would expect from mining, and in the ground water some 30 - 40m below the surface this would be expected. Our modelling has indicated there is no risk at all to any Batchelor water aquifers. The mine is some distance away. Within a kilometres of the pit we see no elevated contamination at all in the ground water."

Mr Slight says other companies beginning mining in the Batchelor region, like (Compass Resources) should heed the following warning. "The lessons that Newmont have learnt is that community involvement and engagement in the whole project life cycle, the community need to be involved. One of our policies is that no new project or mine will start unless it's fully costed and reviewed closure plan developed with stakeholders. If we were able to do that, we would find a much better result at the end of the mine life."